Don't Give Them a Reason!!

There’s a lot of hoopla about the Party Gaming’s litigation under the U.S Department of Justice. One founder, separate from the online poker room itself, pled guilty to charges of….operating an online gambling site…..outside of the U.S.?
So the concern is that this guy acted too quickly, coming to a settlement agreement, as he was completely within his legal rights to keep his poker room operating overseas. Not so much that he paid the money, or that he’s doing jail time for no reason, that he sold out his colleagues, but more so what this says for the history of online poker.
Think about it, this guy pleads guilty for having done nothing wrong – for doing what thousands of online poker sites do, legally, every day. So, he was admitting he was wrong for operating a gambling website, even though it was legal to gamble online in the areas where the site was accessible. Many times in U.S. litigation, an attorney will refer to prior court cases where there was a ruling in favor of what they’re charging so and so. I can see the Department of Justice going after several offshore gambling facilities under the same reasoning.
There are plenty of online poker rooms that operate in the U.S., or cater to U.S. players, and the U.S. has since turned a blind eye, it would seem. Take PokerStars or Full Tilt, who sponsor many members in the World Series of Poker – it’s not like those who are after poker sites are unaware of this. Why it they get off completely free, but offshore websites are being pursued by a government that has no jurisdiction over them?
And how is it, that when this comes up in trade dispute after trade dispute, that it’s still allowed to go on? How come these governments are losing, after filing appeal after appeal, and the U.S. gets away with it? It boggles my mind.